2 Indicted In Assault Of Woman

Police Say Men Slipped Drug Into Her Cocktail

June 25, 1996|By STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

A Palm Beach County grand jury on Monday indicted two men on charges of sexual battery, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit sexual battery in a Feb. 18 attack of a drugged woman outside a west Boca Raton nightclub.

Their attorney, Richard Springer, could not be reached for comment late Monday. Both men are free on $150,000 bail each and under house arrest until their trial.

Police say the two friends took turns raping a 30-year-old Deerfield Beach woman in the parking lot of Club Boca after putting her into a stupor by slipping gama hydroxybutyric acid, GHB, into her cocktail.

GHB was used by bodybuilders to gain muscle until it was made illegal. When mixed with alcohol, the drug can knock out or otherwise incapacitate the user, experts say.

Since reports of their arrests, about a dozen women from as far away as Dade County have contacted police and reported they also met the pair and have hazy recollections of being sexually attacked.

The grand jury on Monday returned indictments in the case of only one woman, but the conspiracy charge indicates a pattern, or more than one act.

State Attorney's Office spokesman Michael Edmondson said on Monday he could not comment on whether charges involving additional women are pending.

"If there are any additional victims or issues regarding these defendants, all I can say is the case is still under investigation," Edmondson said.

The case is not the first involving drugs used to incapacitate rape victims in Palm Beach County.

In January, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office arrested a Loxahatchee couple accused of sexually assaulting young girls after plying them with cocktails laced with Rohypnol, or roofies, a potent sedative illegal in the U.S.

Christopher Chrzan, 28, is charged with four counts of lewd acts, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two counts of sexual battery on a child younger than 12. The girls were 11 and 15 at the time of the assaults, police said. Chrzan's girlfriend Wendy Peifer, 24, was charged as an accessory.

Prosecutors say the difficulty in taking such cases to a jury have not been tested in Palm Beach County. Chrzan's and Peifer's rape cases are the first involving Rohypnol to be filed in Palm Beach County. Their cases are still in the preliminary stages and are not scheduled for trial until the fall.

Rape cases typically do not involve witnesses and become a contest of credibility of the accuser against the accused. When the victim was in a drug-induced stupor and has a hazy recollection of the attack and her assailant, the case becomes even more difficult to prove, experts said.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, chief of the crimes against children and sexual assault unit, said sexual assaults of unconscious or helpless victims are not new.

"People slipping things into people's drinks is not a novel approach," Cupp said. "It's been happening for years. I don't know about these cases, but there have been successful prosecutions in the past involving rapes when the victim passed out because of alcohol and couldn't remember anything."

Florida statutes cover the scenario of a rape victim incapacitated by either drugs or alcohol and finds that in such cases, consent is not an issue because it could not be given in that condition, Cupp said.

In cases where victims do not have a clear memory of what happened, police have to rely on physical and circumstantial evidence to make their case, Cupp said.

But, in the cases of victims who come forward months later, there is little police can do.

Denise Snyder, executive director of the Washington, D.C. Rape Crisis Center, said nationwide, law enforcement agencies are just gearing up to test for drugs such as Rohypnol, but the nature of the drug makes it difficult to detect in victims.

"Rohypnol stays in your system for a short period of time. You're knocked out for a long period of time, and by the time you're conscious and decide what to do, the window [for testing) may be closed," Snyder said.

"From an assailant's perspective, it's almost setting up a foolproof rape because prosecution will be extremely difficult. You have the amnesiac effect.

"From the survivors' perspective, there are all kinds of questions: Who was involved, what happened, did anybody see, were there pictures taken? All they have is the physical evidence of their own body," Snyder said.

As for prevention, Rohypnol and GHB are virtually undetectable.

"When you're in a bar, other than sitting there with your hand over your drink, I don't know what's completely foolproof," Snyder said. "But instead of leaving the drink when you go the bathroom or go the dance floor, spend the extra $5 and get another drink."